A few years ago, Joe Therrien, a graduate of the NYC Teaching Fellows program, was working as a full-time drama teacher at a public elementary school in New York City. Frustrated by huge class sizes, sparse resources and a disorganized bureaucracy, he set off to the University of Connecticut to get an MFA in his passion—puppetry. Three years and $35,000 in student loans later, he emerged with degree in hand, and because puppeteers aren’t exactly in high demand, he went looking for work at his old school. The intervening years had been brutal to the city’s school budgets—down about 14 percent on average since 2007. A virtual hiring freeze has been in place since 2009 in most subject areas, arts included, and spending on art supplies in elementary schools crashed by 73 percent between 2006 and 2009. So even though Joe’s old principal was excited to have him back, she just couldn’t afford to hire a new full-time teacher. Instead, he’s working at his old school as a full-time “substitute”; he writes his own curriculum, holds regular classes and does everything a normal teacher does. “But sub pay is about 50 percent of a full-time salaried position,” he says, “so I’m working for half as much as I did four years ago, before grad school, and I don’t have health insurance…. It’s the best-paying job I could find.”

Yeah, too bad about all the debt you piled up on the puppetry degree. But I see no reason why I should pay for your stupidity.

OWS being a leftist enclave, guess what Joe has ended up doing. If you guessed that it has something to do with giant puppets, give yourself a ceegar.

At one of Arts and Culture’s meetings—held adjacent to 60 Wall Street, at a quieter public-private indoor park that’s also the atrium of Deutsche Bank—it dawned on Joe: “I have to build as many giant puppets as I can to help this thing out—people love puppets!”

No, Joe, children and left wing protester dopes love puppets. The rest of us put that kid stuff away when we outgrew it.

These idiots really are parodies of a caricature of the infantile left, aren’t they.

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

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1.
snork

Oh, c’mon. The Muppets were great. But then again, the Muppets made money. Without subsidies from the taxpayers, yet.

And I can guarantee that it never, ever, even once occured to Jim Henson or Frank Oz that they needed a degree in puppets to ply their trade. Neither would they have looked for official puppetry graduates whenever they needed a new member for their troupe.

This guy really needs a good Miss Piggy karate chop. People LOVE puppets when they get to seem them give Miss Piggy karate chops to morons.

Jim Henson was still in High School when he started performing Sam and Friends for a Maryland TV station. Yes, if you are a truly talented artist no degree is necessary. If you are NOT talented then no degree will help.

In Somerset Maugham’s book “Of Human Bondage” (no it is not kinky) the main character studies art. He works hard, even has some talent, but is told that if it is not his passion, he should find another line of work.

If you get to work on your passion, that should be reward enough. If you don’t work on your passion, they you expect to be paid. If you work a ‘dirty job’ they you get paid well. Mike Roe figured out at some time that the ‘follow your passion’ advice was bad advice. “Dirty Jobs” is one of the biggest hits on television, and Mike Roe has made a lot of money.

I wouldn’t say the Muppets made money entirely without subsidies from the taxpayers; the Muppets made their first big splash on the scene in “Sesame Street,” which aired—airs—on the publicly-funded Public Broadcasting Service. Yes, the Muppets branched out, and made money in TV and film (not to mention spinoff merchandise) in the commercial world, but the public funding was their bread and butter for some time.

It always pays to look these things up. Jim Henson started off with his muppets on the Washington DC NBC affiliate under the show title Sam and Friends which had a run from 1955-1961. Sesame Street’s use of muppets started in 1969 and obviously continues to present but muppets are mostly owned by Disney these days. Jim Henson Company retains the fraggles sub-franchise and Sesame Street has certain rights previously purchased.

Sesame Street/PBS is obviously important to the muppets but they were a 2nd act for Henson. They did not start him off.

The statement, “the Muppets made their first big splash on the scene in “Sesame Street,” is obviously true. It says nothing about Henson’s or the Muppets’ start. A great many things start without ever making a big splash.

Involvement with “Sam and Friends” is, at best, a footnote; it was not what made them household words across the country.

You need to recognize the difference between pay-for-service and an outright grant. Sometimes the line can be a little fuzzy, but in the case of the Sesame Street Muppets, I think it’s pretty clearly in the former category.

Now a grant for public performance of LGBT puppet pr0n would be more NEA’s speed.

Thunderbirds were awesome. I would think puppetry lends itself to a solo career pretty well, especially with new digital film techniques. Instead of whining this guy should be out there becoming a youtube star.

This is the truth. Instead of standing around whining that “life’s not fair” he could be out there doing something productive. Youtube may not make any money, but then again standing around with the rest of the OWS crew isn’t making him any money either. But posting videos online gets his talent (if there is any) out there for all to see and may lead to bigger things.

It’s like they say… when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Don’t start crying that it’s not fair since you wanted oranges.

The funny part is that they think idiotic stories like this are going to actually evoke a response among a majority of people in this country.

Guess what Joe? You see that hole in your foot? You put it there. You loaded the gun. You pointed it at your foot. You pulled the trigger. Not society. You.

It’s great you followed your dream. But like everyone else in this galaxy, you have to weigh the balances of good and bad in following your dreams. And you have to accept the possibility the “suck” may outweigh the “awesome” in the end. Because your dream ended up being something that was not profitable to you, that’s not the world’s fault. And the world should not have to pay for you to follow your dreams.

Cowboy the f*** up, and either accept what makes you happy, or accept that it’s not what the world needs and find a career path that will sustain you.

But reality is foreign to these leftwing goofballs. To them, the world should all be rainbow colored unicorn farts, and skittles raining from the sky.

Let’s take that a step further. Joe the Plumber had a dream. And it was a realistic one, too. Until the Obama entity pissed all over it. Somebody needs to explain why it’s so sacred that a puppeteer be able to follow his dream of providing something useless, and somebody who wants to follow his dream to provide something useful is spat upon by the same crowd.

I can see the sign now; Puppets, not Plumbing!!!

And judging from some of the OWS photos, some of them really don’t know what to do with plumbing.

I doubt any of them could change a spark plug in a lawn mower, much less install a bathroom sink.

And yes, I agree with you.

But the whole thing lies on the wussification of people nowadays, and the dirtbags in politics that prey on said wussification.

Grow up. If life sucks for you, then it’s up to you to make it great, not everyone around you. And what makes you happy may require you to face a little suck. And it’s up to you, and only you, to decide if what makes you happy is worth the suck that comes with it.

And all that is without mentioning the absolute absurdity of the thinking that puppetry would be a reasonable option for gainful employment in these times. Perhaps a millennium or so ago, but now? Word of the day…. Hobby…. Nuf’ said…

That’s it. Hobby. It is possible to make money from your hobby, even to turn your hobby into a career. You do not start that process by quitting your day job and running up a five-figure debt.

Puppet boy could have made puppets without a puppetry degree. He could have volunteered to put on little shows at schools, fairs, churches, pediatric wards at the hospital. It would be fun, plus he’d be building a reputation, polishing his skills, and networking. While doing that, he could have figured out a way to make his schtick pay – something called a “plan.” If – and only if – the plan was was viable, then he could have invested some capital (eew!) and gone “pro.” Chances are his business would fail anyway, but at least he gave it a shot.

A major complaint among the OWS people seems to be that a college degree in Field X does not guarantee you a job in Field X, or any kind of job at all, really.

“Grow up. If life sucks for you, then it’s up to you to make it great, not everyone around you.”

I do think that the collective “everyone around me” has an obligation not to intentionally add to the suck–for example, my wages shouldn’t be confiscated to keep Joe Puppetry in free health care while he sits around making puppets to insult me. This obligation has been seriously neglected over the past 80-odd years.

They don’t have a leader. That’s their problem. They don’t trust authority, so they’re afraid of putting anyone in charge. Even if someone did try to step up and lead, a lot of the OWSers wouldn’t follow – it’s not what they do. But they at least need a public face, someone who “speaks for OWS,” presents a single, consistent narrative, and keeps the media “on message.” Without that, they’re just a heterogeneous mob milling around in the park.

They are the exact opposite of the Nazis. Until you see them wearing uniforms and following a leader, they’re nothing to worry about.

I assume that with an advanced degree in his teaching field (drama) makes his Master of Fine Arts, performance, he would automatically (due to the union contract) be paid an extra $10k or $20k for going back to his old job. They had LESS money than when he left, so they OBVIOUSLY couldn’t suddenly pay him more. What’s worse is, they probably fired the stupid schmuck who had replaced him. Why is no one crying for that guy? Not only that, but now, as a full-time sub, he is teaching whatever he wants instead of something that the school board deems useful.

I was just about to comment on that very point. Not only did he rack up a lot of student loan debt for a useless degree, under union rules, having a graduate degree means the school district has to pay him more money. In this era of tight budgets, he just priced himself out of the market.

Leaving a job voluntarily without having another job already lined up is always risky. Running up a lot of debt (which can’t be discharged through bankrupsy) isn’t very bright either but it can make sense if there’s a good prospect for increasing your income once you’re finished. However, that often isn’t the case, so all you’re doing is making things harder for yourself. And now, they want the rest of us who played by the rules to pay for their stupidity. Sorry, but no.

“I’m working for half as much as I did four years ago, before grad school”

In other words, this guy decided to quit his job in 2007, when school budgets were already tight and the downturn in the economy was visible on the horizon to anyone who bothered to open his eyes. But he just knew they’d be willing and able to re-hire him as soon as he had that magic MFA in Puppetry!

Happier. They said afterwards making a puppet movie was a miserable experience they’d never care to repeat. Instead they have to settle for being highly successful cartoon makers. Those two have an amazing work ethic when you consider how long they’ve kept the show going and worth watching, even while creating a hit Broadway show in the off-season.

“I have to build as many giant puppets as I can to help this thing out—people love puppets!”

The mindset necessary in formulating the above is that of a child. Pretty well sums up the whole OWS movement and our current President’s administration. I can barely wait for January 2013 and the return of the adults!

He left a good paying job to follow his passion…dude has been listening to too many hollywood movies. This type of liberal pap has been infiltrating the hearts and minds of the last generation and now unfortunately they wake up and find themselves in a real world.

“….In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, we find a spaceship full of people who say they were one of three ships escaping a doomed planet. The “A” ship carried the great leaders, scientists, and thinkers. The “C” ship carried the workers, those who actually made things. Theirs, the “B” ship, consisted of middle managers, hairdressers, telephone sanitizers, and the like. It eventually becomes clear that their planet was not in fact doomed, and that they were the victims of a ploy to rid their world of a useless third of the population….”

Oh. My. God. (And I’m not taking His name in vain, it’s that serious) I have been muttering “B ship” ever since I began serving my sentence here in Beltwayland. The Capital Beltway is a circular landing pad for the B Ship.

My sister has a passion for floral design. However, she has to work. Guess what? She got a part-time job at a florist and learned on the job. This guy should have done the same – or even volunteered with puppeteers. He’d have his job and no debt and would have been able to follow his passion.

I have a passion for wine. There aren’t many jobs in wine and few of them pay well, so I help out sometimes at a local wine shop for $12 an hour. I could never quit my job to do it full-time, but it’s nice to get paid for pursuing my hobby.

Your sister took the wise path to her passion. The same path can apply to other areas. For example, I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve been watching too much of the Food Network and Cooking Channel want to become chefs. That’s all well and good, we need good chefs and really good ones can make a lot of money. There are a few ways to achieve chefdom:

1. Go to an expensive culinary school like CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and spend upwards of $60,000 for your education.

2. Go to less expensive community colleges that offer chef training.

3. Get a job in a restaurant and work your way up the ranks as you learn on the job.

For most people, option 3 makes the most sense but too many take option 1. Another advantage of option 3 is that they get to see how hard it is to work in a restaurant and decide if that’s what they really want to do as a career. They can earn a modest living at first while learning the job without running up massive debt.

Me, I had a passion for writing … but after getting a degree in English, and serving in the military for twenty years, I started writing for a mil-blog, established that I did have some talent for story-telling, worked up a fan-base, and turned to publishing as an indy-author. This certainly cost me a good bit less than getting an advanced degree, going to all sorts of writing workshops. I have five historical novels out there, and a sixth coming out at the end of the month. No, I’m not making big bucks off them … but I’m doing pretty OK.

I have a passion for blogging, but I don’t expect it to pay the bills, so I work at whatever other jobs I can find. The rest of the time, I run a team blog. I’d like to build the blog to the point that it will at least pay for itself (server rental, Internet connectivity, and so forth), but I’m not there yet.

Anybody who repeats that drivel about “follow your passion and the money will come” is just being cruel. That isn’t how life works.

I went to college, got a degree in special education, and am now working as a teacher. I enjoy it, but I’ve recently come to realize my true calling:

I want to be a dirigible pilot.

Yes, I want to fly blimps. What’s that? There’s only a handful of people who do that on the entire planet? That doesn’t matter, because it’s my dream. I am owed a job. I don’t have a pilot’s license to fly so much as a single-engine Cessna, much less the multi-engine commercial pilot’s license needed… but so what? Society owes me the education and training needed to follow my dream. Society also owes me the millions of dollars it costs to have my own dirigible. Why? Because I want it. That’s why. Shut up.

Who are you to deny me my dream? When the communist revolution happens, I will have my own blimp. And I will fly it over all of you people who told me I couldn’t have one.

It kills me when I hear these dummies go on about how they “followed their dream” and it didn’t lead them to where they wanted to go. I have an idea – next time you decide to follow a dream, wake up and go to work instead.

Oh, and by the way, one reason there’s been no recovery from the housing bubble is that, thanks to the teachers’ unions and other public employee unions, local governments have run out of other people’s money. Those unions are why the school district couldn’t afford to rehire this dude. They’re also the reason why many people can’t sell their houses:

There are dreams, fantasies and delusions. It’s important to know the difference.

A dream (not the sleeping kind) are important. You can think of them as a goal or objective that can come true if one has the talent and work ethic to make it happen. For example, I’ll bet a good percentage of today’s doctors dreamed of becoming a doctor when they were young. They didn’t just dream about it, though, they worked very hard for many years to make it happen.

A fantasy is something that might come true but the odds are very much against it. Someone just won over $200 million on the Powerball lottery last week. The odds of winning are about 190,000,000 to one against but someone did win. A person can buy a ticket and fantasize about winning but if they’re actually counting on it, they’re in for disappointment. That’s why lotteries are sometimes described as a “tax on people who are bad at math.”

A delusion has no chance of ever becoming true no matter how hard you work at it. I’m 54 years old. If I started running with the hope of winning a gold medal at next year’s Olympics, I’m simply deluding myself. No matter how hard I work at it, there’s no way in the world I would win that medal. Powerball gives better odds.

It started with that song “Wouldn’t it be ironic?” which says things are ironic when they aren’t. The songwriter had no idea what irony was and anyone who listened had their own definition of irony blurred to the point that it lost meaning.

Didn’t this guy see Being John Malkovich? That would cure puppetry in anyone.

That said, I’d bet a really good puppeteer could make six figures doing yuppie kids’ birthday parties. Yeah, there aren’t a lot of JOBS, sorry you though Citibank or Grumman hired a lot of puppeteers, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to make money at it.

The Libby profs suck these victims into worthless degrees because without these victims the Libby profs don’t have jobs. And then the Libby profs get these victims to rail against “evil” corporations and the “greedy” rich for not paying their “fair share” in taxes, which keep these Libby profs in tenure and six-figure, part-time salaries. “Dizzy” Lizzy Warren immediately comes to mind. “Raise my taxes!” she cries. Gee, wonder why?

The real odd thing is that they can get around budget rules and allow him to teach whatever he wants now as a “full-time substitute”. When I was in school, substitutes only taught classes when the actual teacher was out sick. His principal is cheating the system by adding a full-time teacher (albeit at half-pay) with funds that ought to used only in emergencies. I expect that Joe Therrien’s principal will be answering some pointed budgeting questions soon, while Joe himself will become full-time unemployed.

Bryan, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but isn’t puppet-boy, here, a perfect candidate for an NEA grant? Of course, he’d have to talk/act ultra-left wing, anti-American, or pro-trannie, etc., but I’m sure the NEA could come up with $100K per year for a couple of years. A deserving but starving artist like this is what the NEA was designed for.

Who gave this clown $35,000 dollars US to get a degree in puppetry? Ridiculous. Was it the Federal Government? With the need for engineers and scientists, $35,000 went out the door for a puppeteer? SHEESH!

I walked by an art shop the other day and it gave me a great idea. I’m going to go to school to be an artist. I shouldn’t have to borrow too much to get a degree in art. Oh, and to support myself while my art catches on, I’ll just write a novel or two. Wonder what kind of school I’ll have to enroll in for that? No problem, I’m sure I can get another student loan to learn that.

That’s okay though, I’m sure I’ll make a lot of money from my artwork, I mean I once painted a house, (well, my room actually, but it was in my house), and I did a lot of finger paintings in Kindergarten. Add that to the money I will make from my writing and I’ll be fine. Writing can’t be too hard, I do a lot of it posting on websites and making signboards and such.

Okay, all you guys need to do is send me money to get started and support me while I’m in school and everything will be just perfect!

Signs that your ‘feild’ of study may lack career potential: 95% of practitioners call themselves hobbyists. The remaining 5% have other skills they leverage between jobs in the preferred line of work.

A skilled puppetry person might find work on Broadway, Hollywood, or higher government. (Lots of puppets there!) But the people I’ve known in such jobs have always had to be Jack of all Trades types because you be busy for a year on a project using certain talents but then go three years before those talents are needed by anyone else.

I’m a bit stunned to read that the NYC school district had a full-time Drama teacher at the elementary level. Is it any wonder this district has the highest cost per student in the nation and generally wretched results?

Expanding a bit on what others have pointed out, Joe Therrien was a full-time drama teacher at a public elementary school. It’s good to know that the NYC schools are in such good shape that they can afford to have full-time drama teachers in elementary school, isn’t it?

But Joe was “frustrated by huge class sizes, sparse resources and a disorganized bureaucracy” … So did he try to change the system to reduce some of that bureaucracy and waste of resources? No, Joe decided to milk the system for all it was worth by getting a Master of Fine Arts so he’d automatically get $10K per year more under union rules, whether theere was any need for a Master Puppeteer at his school or not. He made a really bad decision by quitting his job and going into debt to get that MFA, but Joe’s own greed and willingness to abuse the system is what led him to do it.

Puppets are great if the puppateer is good, like Jim Henson or Terry Fator. But you dont need a degree, you just need a good sense of humor, or in the case of Fator, the ability to do great singing impressions as a ventriliquist. I think when Fator was in his teens he actu

I think when Fator was in his teens he actually did take a few classes in ventriliquism. But a graduate degree in puppetry, you have got to be kidding.

Who else has been milking the system? Wall Street has. Why does the republican right have no better language than labelling the protestors as ‘silly’ or ‘childish’? I have encountered the same such moronic rantings in London on protests from pseudo-fascists and at the London Occupation of St. Pauls. My response is this to the same person who has a problem with someone changing life career; it really is none of your d@mn business what I do with my life especially if I am taking out a loan from a student finance company during a period of recession. I am not leaching from the state. In the US it was Clinton who removed Glass Steagall because of the Republican majority. Huge mistake for US finances and assets. And the rest of the world goes belly up too. Who is milking whose system to the detriment of the 99% huh? Work it out for yourselves slaves of the Fed. I bet you’re glad you’re not slaves of her Majesty. Oh but I almost forgot… Queen Liz owns the deeds to your country doesn’t she! Silly me.

If you’re content to run up a bunch of student loan debt, that’s your business. If you’re calling for that debt to be forgiven at taxpayer expense, that’s our business. That would be leeching off of the system.